Survivors of Sexual Violence in Sudan Endure a Grueling Journey to Recovery
Sudan Events – Agencies
When a member of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) stormed Aisha’s home in Khartoum, he gave her two grim choices: marry him, or watch her father be killed.
She didn’t take long to decide—she traded her freedom for her father’s life.
“I was afraid for my father, so I agreed to the marriage,” the young woman told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Aisha, 22, who asked to use a pseudonym, was held for a full year in a house not far from her family’s home, where she was repeatedly raped and beaten, ultimately leading to a miscarriage.
Before the war broke out in 2023, Aisha was a student at the Faculty of Information Technology. But after the conflict and her forced marriage, she became “psychologically broken,” she said with a trembling voice.
According to estimates by governmental and non-governmental organizations, thousands of Sudanese women have fallen victim to sexual violence since the war began in April 2023 between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The Sudanese government’s Combating Violence Against Women Unit documented 1,138 cases of sexual violence since the war’s onset. But this number reflects “only 10 percent of the real figure,” according to the unit’s director, Salima Ishaq Al-Khalifa.
International organizations accuse the RSF of using systematic sexual violence—including rape, sexual slavery, and forced marriage—as a weapon of war against the regular army.
A New Beginning
In Port Sudan, in eastern Sudan—an area that has largely remained untouched by violence—some survivors have found refuge at the Aman Foundation.
Since its establishment in August 2024, Aman has assisted over 1,600 women fleeing sexual violence. The organization provides psychological counseling, healthcare, legal services, and even vocational training in baking, sewing, and embroidery.
In a modest house in a quiet neighborhood of Port Sudan, survivors at Aman share bedrooms and a kitchen with a small dining table. On the other side is a living room with a TV. Despite its simplicity, the house offers a kind of comfort that hundreds of thousands of Sudanese women are denied.
In her office at Aman, psychological counselor Lubna Ali reviews the files of women who have reached out to the center, which supports women from Darfur, Al-Jazirah, Khartoum, and other states.
“Most of the cases we receive were raped by more than one person,” she told AFP. “We had a case of a girl who was raped by ten militia fighters,” referring to the RSF.
According to Ali, a third of the sexual violence victims at the center are minors—“33.5 percent,” she said—and many arrive pregnant.
Aman helps survivors leave the regions where they were attacked and supports them in resuming their education after staying at the center for three to four months—or until a pregnant woman gives birth.
The organization also counsels women who choose to give up children born from rape for adoption, warning that the number of victims is likely to rise in the coming period.
Ali stressed the importance of protecting the survivors’ privacy: “The first thing we tell them is that what matters to us is your psychological and physical well-being.”
The war in Sudan, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands and displaced 13 million people, resulting in what the United Nations describes as the worst humanitarian crisis in modern history.
“I Couldn’t Get Over It”
In Aman’s small living room, Salma sits reading a book and sipping tea. The 23-year-old fled from the city of Hasahisa in Al-Jazirah State, where she was assaulted by RSF fighters.
Salma, who also requested a pseudonym, said she and three others were sexually harassed by fighters who stormed the house they were hiding in.
“There were eight of them… We were beaten and harassed. Some were raped, and others were hit with weapons, including me,” she said.
“I went into shock… because I saw something I couldn’t get over.”
By December 2023, hundreds of thousands of women had fled Al-Jazirah State, which had been invaded by RSF fighters who imposed a siege on several villages.
At the beginning of this year, the army recaptured the state and expelled the RSF, but Salma, now displaced in Port Sudan, says she still “can’t get over what happened.”
“I want to complete my studies and focus on my future, but many times I find myself drowning in thoughts of what happened to me,” she told AFP.
Amina, 23, provides psychological support to women at Aman after she herself was detained in Khartoum for 11 days because of her brother’s ties to the government.
Amina was held with dozens of other girls who endured “the worst forms of treatment”; some were forcibly married, while others were kept as “hostages for negotiation.”
Now, she helps other survivors at Aman while continuing her own recovery journey.
In Egypt, which has received 1.5 million Sudanese refugees since the war began, therapist Sara Montasir sees at least five rape survivors daily at a support center in Cairo.
Montasir told AFP that survivors must actively participate in their healing process, noting that due to the trauma they’ve experienced, “they can no longer sleep or live normally.”
Amina asks: “We’re victims of something we had no hand or leg in. Why did all of this happen to us?!”
